Tag Archives: PC gaming

This blog post marks the 340th Be MOP blog post and with a heavy heart, I am sad to say this is my last one. After three and a half years of posting content, on what started as World of Warcraft site, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, this site is coming to an end with the end of this week.

I have been thinking about ending Be MOP for quite a while, but to make a long story short I just got burned out. Constantly thinking about the next blog posts, spending hours writing notes, drafts, and editing future posts. Just like my last few months in World of Warcraft, writing blog posts just was not a fun thing to do anymore, and I has not been a fun thing to do for a while. I know better than to continue on a grind that has lost it’s fun, I used to grind Reputation to exalted in WoW. Life is just too short for that type of work. It is sad to put to rest a 3+ project of my life, but for my final post I would rather look at all the positives this site has done for me.

Because of this site I now have notebooks full of memories in the form of rough drafts of posts of old, from the first few ideas for blog posts back when I was starting out with the idea of a blog in college to fully written posts as recent as this past week.

This blog also gave me a platform and the ability to discuss the crazier, interesting, and more abstract topics of the gaming world. Conversations I would never dreamed of if it was not for the fact that many times I my mind was wandering just before I had to get a start on the next blog post.

This site has also improved and honed my spelling but also my writing skills, teaching me through practice how to properly construct a proper argument on the internet after posts over post stating and defending my personal gaming opinions. A truly valuable skill now a days.

But most importantly of all this blog helped me create, form and develop a voice on the Internet and with that voice, Be MOP inadvertently jump started my Twitter and Twitch page (two medias that I will avidly continue after this site) and gave me the courage to continue And with that voice, I have found my place in multiple online communities, ranging from WoW, blogging, Twitter, and finally Twitch streaming communities.

I might come return back to Be MOP later in my life, maybe if there ever arise a great need to express an opinion or thought that I could not effectively execute in a few Tweets or while I am on air with Twitch. For now it is time for a break. With this final paragraph I would like to thank Be MOP on a whole for helping me with all these great accomplishments and to quote one of the songs from my favorite plays:

*This is a bit of a tangent from the usual Be MOP posts but this rant has been nesting in the back of my mind for ages and I need to get it off my chest*

There is a running gag on the internet that out of the three generation 1 Pokemon starters that Charmander was the best choice and Buldabuar was the worst pick. When in fact it is quite the opposite.

Two things you need to know before continuing:

Pokemon’s main gameplay strategy is to use type advantages. That is quite literally lesson one of the game and why the three starters are Fire-Water-Grass and not three types that are neither super or not very effective against each other, like Normal, Poison and Electric. That is why you do not go against the Elite Four’s Bruno with Fire or Bug Pokemons.

And way back when, when I was playing Pokemon Red on my Gameboy color, I was one of the Pokemon Trainers that chose bulbasaur as my first starter.

And that is why the few righteous players that picked Bulbasaur were rewarded with the first two gym leaders, Brock and Misty, that were super effective against grass types. People who picked Squirtle were rewarded with only the first gym to be super effective against, while those poor people who picked Charmander got NOTHING.

In the early game there is not as many chances to get the variety of Pokemon types compared to after at the second gym, when you get to Vermilion Gym and the game starts opening up some more.

By the third Gym, electric, the game world was able to stretch it’s arms and show us the other elemental pokemons, like the invaluable Diglett Cave and allowing the game difficulties to plateaued a bit between the three starters.

Despite the all that, bulbasaur being the objectively best choice of starters, he still get the shaft in terms of marketing and promotion and community love.

It is incredibly infuriating.

“oh but Charizard’s a winged DRAGON how cool is that!?” First, everyone knows that Charizard is not a proper dragon type and secondly Charizard could not even use HM02 until Pokemon Yellow, THEY HAD TO PATCH THAT FEATURE IN LATER.

I was giving this particular rant to a college friend of mine, and this response, as I am assured some of you who are a fan of game design might argue; that the Pokemon Team intentionally gave charmander and squirtle a type disadvantage to give a subtle EASY, NORMAL, and HARD mode to the Kanto region.

That argument would have hold water if it was not for the FireRed and LeafGreen revisiting Generation 1 for the GameBoy Advance, and gamefreak gave charmander they obscenely over-powered-against-rock-types and out of place move, Metal Claw. A move that wipes the floor with Brock’s team, rebalancing the first game giving all starters a fair shake at being SUPER EFFECTIVE against the first Pokemon boss, Thus retconning one of Pokemon’’s poor Gen 1 game design.

Can someone please explain to me, even with the argument I made, WHY charmander and charizard still gets so much love on the internet and from the Pokemon Company? Why since everything in the Pokemon’s own game points towards to obviously superior grass type starter pokemon. Find me on Google+ for updates on this blog

I, or rather, my brother built my tower and now all the drivers and crucial non-gaming programs have been downloaded and installed. For the past few days I have done nothing but replay PC games in my spare time. After playing a few games a few choice games at MAX settings and more importantly looking at all the games I play without the fear of being forced to play with terrible framerates.

Now I can play all the games I have bought over the years but squirreled away for a rainy day, games like Saints Row IV, Metal Gear Revengence, Fallout New Vegas, and the Devil May Cry series.

New Computer Games….get it?

With this new computer I can replay some of my favorite AAA games, like BioShock, BioShock Infinite, the Arkham series at full settings to revisit every nook and cranny of the old worlds with all the extra unnecessary environmental detail in full view.

Now I can play famous moddable games like Fallout and Skyrim, by not only playing through the game’s original story mode but add HD mod sets and mods that changes game play or adds more content to the game without worrying about compromising the stability of my laptop.

Skyrim mods that are now FREE by the way

I now have the ability to play any and all recent games like the like the Witcher III, Arkham Knights, Star Citizen, any games that will be announced at this year’s E3 event.

Oh i cant wait for E3

I will admit the thing holding me back was my old laptop but now I feel like I got a second wind on PC gaming, the skybox is the limit with all the games I can play, and I can not wait.

The day has arrived, after five months of saving my Tax refund and penny pinching from my paychecks, the creation of my new gaming P.C has finally happened. After a day trip to Massachusetts for the closest Microcenter and a longer than expected six hours build time my baby was finally built.

the catalyst that made me realize that I needed to upgrade beyond my old Laptop was that an infograph came out and it showed that my laptop’s graphics card was far below the graphical capabilities of both the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. Something I would not stand for.

This beauty has a lovely Tb of Hard drive, 8 Gbs of Ram, an i5 Intel Core CPU, housed inside of a Gigabyte Z97MX-Gaming 5 motherboard and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 powerhouse to deal with every game I have ever wanted to play for the next five years or so.

It would be an exaggeration that I am beyond excited to play and stream games on an Ultra High graphical settings instead of being forced to play the games I love on a Low or in some cases, Very Low to ensure stable frame rates.and the few games have I have downloaded have been nothing less than glorious.

Because of my purchases I unknowingly qualified for a free copy of Arkham Knights, a game I was quite excited for and eventually going to buy, and the Witcher 3. To celebrate my stumbled upon fortune I decided to power through the Rocksteady Arkham games -on the highest settings of course- in preparation for the final installment of the Arkham Trilogy.

Smile!

I still have to redownload a few key games but I have given a glorious blank slate for my computer, with that I am now choosing to only download the games I want to play instead of the games I was going to play. Even though I upgraded my hardware I still get to keep my PC gaming library I have been building for the past four years BUT now all my games have been given that wonderful ‘definite versions’ polish at no additional cost.

On top of playing all the games I have without the fear of frame drops and overheating the most exciting thing about this whole adventure and blog post was that even after spending a good chunk of change on my new computer I still stayed within my budget, which is a major win for me.

Just like last year, this blog post is going to be a little bit different. Instead of a post that talks about my adventures in a recent video game or my opinions on a recent game story I would instead like to announce my continued participation with the Extra Life Charity organization.

The Extra Life charity is a part of the Children’s Miracle Network and it organize gamers from around the world to get together to what we do best. On November 7th all the Extra Life participants will log on and play video games for 24 hours to raise money for a hospital of their choice.

This will be my second year participating with the organization, last year I was able to hit my fundraising goal and played videogames for the entire day while helping children in need. A pretty nice win for everyone.

Just like last year I am choosing to help the local Boston Children’s Hospital and just like last year I am trying to raise the same amount of funds of $200. As an added incentive, a donation of any amount to my fundraising page will be permanently credited on the list of sponsors on my Twitch channel and within the next six months if we hit the fundraising goal I promise to stream my 24 hour day of play on Twitch as a reward for everyone’s generosity.

I did it last year and I will gladly do it again

If you have been following my adventures through my blog or Twitch stream sessions and if you have even thought of supporting me beyond being an active reader or viewer please consider donating to a this charity in my name as a morally health alternative.

Extra life wants to try to have people sponsor players by the hour but as you can see there is a variety of different options. including a custom amount to donate.

If you would like to donate to this wonderful event, my Extra Life donation account can be found HERE. The site currently accepts all credit cards. This won’t be the last time I mention this event but the sooner I reach my goal of $200 the sooner I can stop asking for donations.

And to any other gamers out there that found themselves interested in this event and want to try their hand as raising money for a local hospital the extra life FAQ and sign up can be found HERE.

If you have tuned into any of my past streams you might have noticed I have made comments on the graphical status of my gameplay feed. That is because I am currently playing on a very reliable, but still showing her age, four-year old ASUS gaming laptop.

The fact that I play on an outdated computer shows with every stream session I when I keep pushing my CPU to it’s limit for most of the my time on air and as a result my framerate was hitting 20 fps on a good day despite having almost every game played on my Twitch channel had to be cranked down to their lowest possible setting.

For the past year I have manage to able to manage with those limitations to still give a quality stream but I knew the writing was on the wall for this laptop of mine. At the start of the new year I realized that if I wanted to continue streaming I would need a bit of an upgrade, so for the past five months I have been saving up and squirreling away a nice chunk of change to eventually cash out for a custom-built PC tower for my very own.

I was biding my time, waiting for the right time to buy, which was about another month and a half but everything completely changed when this past Sunday, a sudden bout of summer temperatures that graced New Hampshire forced my computer to shut down from overheating, not once, twice, but three times. Twice when I was on Twitch and once more when I was playing a ranked A.R.T.S/MOBA. That was the final straw.

I cleaned out my fan or a bit but if my laptop was having trouble keeping up in the middle of spring, my laptop can not survive a scorcher summer. I have consulted with my younger, more tech savvy brother, for gaming computer build that fits my budget and has everything it needs to play my games at a respectable frame rate on top of meeting all of my streaming needs. If everything goes according to plan both of us will be gathering all the parts at the nearest Micro center and putting everything together on a lazy, but glorious, Sunday afternoon.

It is a statement to say that I am excited for this upcoming Sunday because on top of drastically improving the quality of my Twitch Session I will finally be able to play all the past few year’s AAA games that I have bought during the Steam’s Summer and Winter Sales at 1060p with a stable 60fps that these great games deserved to be play at.

Welcome back to the final installment of the week of Twitch blog posts. Monday we talked about hardware, Wednesday we looked at software, and now we get to talk about the most subjective part of streaming; finding, creating and cultivating a personality for your stream broadcasts. The first thing you want to ask yourself is, “What type of streamer do you want to be, and CAN be?”

I break down almost all streamers into two major categories. The Hardcore, pushing the end game/meta to the cutting edge, the MVP for ever match, or the eSport champion streamer and the more casual, laid back, social streamer.

You can choose either one, there is a crowd and demand for both type of streams but you have to realize there are costs AND whichever one you choose to be you have to walk the walk to back up the talk.

I can not help you with being a good hardcore streamer. I realized early on that I could never be on the cutting edge of endgames so I elected for the social school of streaming, that was realizing my limit of free time to invest in the meta, practicing and realizing I could not be competitive enough ranked matches.

Start out by mainly playing one game, gets yourself cred and settled within a games community, after that you can branch out with other games that you and your viewers might find interesting. I had a short stream session at the very beginning on Wednesday called “Wildcard Wednesdays” where I would stream a game I wanted to stream or that I found interesting to stream, indie games, TF2, and games kicking around in my backlog. I soon noticed that when I switched from game to game for every stream had significantly less viewers and participation than my regular Infinite Crisis nights.

No matter who you are or what type of streamer you want to be you have to find something to make you unique. I have seen some people adopt alter egos, other speed run classic games, some streamers have giveaways on stream, and a few who cosplay while streaming. I, from the start, have made good use of my positive personality, my corny jokers and extensive comic book lore to make myself out as a sunny, charismatic, and wholesome comic book geek who stream to talk about nerdy stuff, which worked really well with the game I have been streaming since day one, Infinite Crisis.

I also view my stream sessions as shows rather than live feeds of my gameplay and I draw inspiration for my on air personality from listening to how Political Speakers and Radio DJs talk and interact with their crowds.

When you start streaming you need to realize that people will be tuning in to watch you stream and if you want them to stay you need to provide a way to entertain them. That means not fumbling around with your broadcasts and doing your part to avoid extensive periods of Dead Air.

To help you with this, learn how to monologue. Go to YouTube and listen to public speakers and actors, see how they hold themselves and pay attention to how they talk to a big crowd, especially with politicians when taking questions from an audience. And always stream like the world is watching, never do a half-hearted stream just because only 2 or 3 people are there, instead cherish those few people who choose to spend their free time with you.

That being said it is normal and natural to completely botch your first few streams. When I was starting out my stream was a nervous mess and very early on I went into my setting and disabling the “record past broadcast” button, taking comfort in knowing that even if my stream session was terrible nobody would be able to find it after the stream ended.

If you get past your embarrassment and push yourself to keep streaming and keep talking, even if nobody is there, you will build confidence and you will develop a voice that warrants viewership. If you are still having problems set some time aside before streaming to make a short list of talking points and topics to mention and monologue on air. I did it when I was starting out and still do it now, it stops you from trying to scramble on air for interesting topics to talk about.

Outside of streaming be sure to deck out your channel’s panel area below, make sure it has a F.A.Q and links to all of to contact you, and make it professional looking. Also brush up on you knowledge of framing with your camera. Make sure you have a clean background, find the best position and distance to sit from the webcam and learn where your camera box ends so if you, like me, use your hands when you talk your hands do not fly out of frame.

Another solid tip I can give to all up-and-coming streamers is to have a great intro and outro for every stream session. For me, at the start I greet everyone with a “Good Morning everyone! My name is Spencer Nozell, this is Be MOP streams, and today we are playing ”

At the end of my stream I go full screen with the webcam, so it is just me at center stage to thank everyone for tuning into today and then transitioning into my ending monologue that covers; the suggestion to hit that follow button as a way to see me again, how to friend me on all the gaming platforms I am on, and plugging all of my social media links, followed by a hearty ‘Good Night’. At the beginning of my time streaming, I would also do a little comic/video game show and tell as a special thank you to the people who stayed until the end. I did that streaming segment until I ran out of stuff to show

This next tip is a big one from me, is use your chatroom on your stream. This works great with your second monitor that I suggested earlier this week, no matter what game you are playing people will eventually swing by your stream and chat room and when that happens be sure to be on the proactive and engage with them the moment you detect them, by saying hello and asking how their day has been, and thanking everyone who press the follow button (I always have my phone or my mailbox inbox at hand to see Twitch’s automated ‘New Follower” email come in real-time).

People tend to stay longer and follow you if you have a genuine conversation with them. Talking to your chat room will also make it easier to stream, by having a conversation it leads into topics and discussing you just could not reach just by yourself.

My greatest tip is do not imitate someone who is already important, instead draw inspiration and wing it and see what sticks and what doesn’t. What works for me might not work for you and your game’s Twitch community, but regardless of the community be transparent, especially if you do a one time company sponsored promotional stream or joining a partnership program. Be sure to disclose those fact from the start. It is alright to make connections with gaming companies, it is NOT alright to withhold the fact and not disclose that information when streaming or when you give your opinions or review of the game. Trust me when I say you do not want to get caught up with conflict of interests accusations, those sort of things can destroy the year and years of faith and trust you built with a community.